Do No Harm - Ruben's Choice
by Kthonia
Summary: Do No Harm was cancelled after airing 2 episodes, and I felt so sorry for them. My attempt to fix their lame rehash of the Jekyll & Hyde premise is a crossover with the classic split personality SF series Dollhouse. Rated M for some swearing (no F word) and a hopefully comical suggestive scene.
1. Chapter 1

Source Material:

_Do No Harm _is an American television series created by David Schulner. It premiered on the NBC network January 31, 2013 and was canceled after airing only two episodes.

_Dollhouse _is an American television series created by writer/director Joss Whedon. It premiered on the Fox network February 13, 2009 and was canceled November 11, 2009.

"Ruben's Choice"

Scene 1

It's not an easy job to keep tabs on your friend's evil alternate, while at the same time formulating a serum to stabilize him into a cohesive persona.

Doctor Ruben Marcado wished he had better things to do with his nights—and his days—than lurking in nightclubs spying on Ian Price. That's what the evil alternate called himself, or perhaps that's what the brilliant neurosurgeon Doctor Jason Cole had named his delusion. After all, they were one and the same physical person, the same tortured mind split in half, but the two men could not be more different. Even down to their unique body chemistry, Ruben knew. And as he worked his way through a third Mojito, one eye on the laughing blue-eyed man at the other side of the bar, he tapped a stylus on the screen of his iPad to puzzle over the formula.

"Hey, whatcha workin' on?" A very pretty and very drunken blonde slithered onto the stool next to him. Her tank top was stretched to its limits by her obviously artificial breasts. She reeked of cigarettes. For a moment, Ruben felt the pang of craving; he had only quit smoking eight months before.

"It's nothing." Ruben cleared the screen and set the iPad aside. "Look, uh, I'm sure you're very nice but I'm waiting for a friend."

She laughed loudly, mouth wide open to show the jeweled stud at the center of her pierced tongue. "He said you'd say that!"

"Who?"

"Your friend over there. He bet me fifty bucks to come ask if you were watching porn on your iPad or not. Be a pal, huh? Open one up now, so I don't lose to that dick."

Ruben looked to the end of the bar while she was talking. Ian Price had gone.

"Damnit!" He scrambled off the stool and wriggled through the sluggish crowd. In a haze of Mojito and dim lights, it was hard to find the door.

At last he emerged to the nighttime city streets. Pedestrians passed left and right, but he knew none of them. Cars, taxis, and buses hummed busily back and forth. _Jason's going to be pissed_, Ruben thought. _I lost him again_.

#


	2. Chapter 2

Scene 2

Ruben returned to his own dark and empty apartment. He felt a little sick from the cocktails and the taxi ride, so he wobbled into the bathroom to take an Advil with a gulp of pink Pepto-Bismol. _What time is it?_ He blinked to read his Wal-Mart wristwatch. "Four thirty," he muttered aloud. "I've got a few hours to sleep."

He kicked off his shoes and his trousers. Still hoping he didn't need to vomit, he collapsed face-down onto the bed.

_In his dream, he adjusts the brightness and contrast on an old black-and-white television. His maternal grandmother sits nearby in a ragged armchair, and she waits for him to fix the picture. "It's almost three o'clock," his grandmother says in Spanish with a thick Puerto Rican accent. "You're going to make me miss my show. Hurry, Rubencito! It's time. It's time!"_

The clock's alarm woke him up. The digital claxon was like the honking of a car horn that would not stop until he slapped it. Ruben squinted at the glowing red numerals 8:17.

"Shit!" _I'm late._ He sat up in bed.

And he was not alone. A man's bare legs stretched next to his own. The blankets wadded up between them felt warm.

Scared to look—and scared not to look—Ruben turned his head to the left. Reclining in all his Playgirl centerfold glory was a very pale, very nude Ian Price. His eyes were only halfway open; he looked as sick and hungover as Ruben himself felt. Yet somehow Ian managed a cruel smile.

"What time is it?" asked Ian, his blue eyes heartless.

"How did you get in?"

"I know how to pick locks, Ruben, is it? I'm betting that you don't." Ian gestured with upturned eyes, to turn Ruben's attention to the headboard of the bed.

Handcuffs enclosed both of Ian Price's wrists. His pale arms extended overhead like a prisoner in some S&M fantasy dungeon. Whereas the bed's frame was a cheap pressboard with a fake wood grain veneer, Ian had drilled through a heavy-duty bolt hook for the bicycle chain.

Ruben jumped out of bed. "What the hell!"

Ian Price coldly glanced sideways to the clock. "I've got seven minutes before I change. Not quite enough time for me to tell you what I think of you... you lying, sniveling, kiss-ass. Last night, I thought about dunking your head under water until you confess what you and Jason are cooking up for me. Seriously, I filled up your bathtub. But you were passed out cold, and I couldn't torture you."

Mind spinning, he fought to keep a poker face. "Torture me? Oh, that's funny, Jason, uh, you're a real practical joker."

"You know damned well I'm not Jason."

"What? What are you talking about?"

Ian Price twiddled his fingers and rattled the handcuff chain. "Instead of torturing you, I looked at your iPad, your laptop, and the closet full of three-ring binders. Then I snooped through the bottom shelf of your fridge. Wow, I gotta say, there's some pretty serious Frankenstein shit going on in there."

_Oh my god_, o_h my god_, Ruben thought in a ringing chant in his mind. His mouth hung open and no words came out.

"Now, what would the hospital administration think of you taking supplies home to your kitchen? I have no idea what's in those freaky test tubes, but I'm betting it's not FDA approved."

"OK, um... um..."

Ian Price laughed at him, a mirthless wicked cackle. "You must be a brilliant chemist dude, because you can't lie for crap."

"I'm not a chemist, I'm a pharmacologist."

"Whatever." Ian Price's cold blue eyes glanced to the clock again. "Four minutes. Nope, now it's three. You've got three minutes to explain that chemo-babble in plain English or else. Tell me what you and Jason are cooking up for me."

"Or else what? You're the one handcuffed."

"And naked in your bed," Ian Price added. "Wouldn't it be embarrassing if people found out about this? Maybe not so embarrassing for you, since you're just some anonymous lab guy nobody cares about. Whatever you do in your spare time, hey, it's a free country. But what about your friend Jason? The world-famous and oh-so-boring neurosurgeon Doctor Jason Cole with the saintly character that inspires all those rich donors to contribute so generously to the hospital."

Ruben yanked open drawers and frantically pulled out sweatpants and T-shirts. _First, cover him up. Second, smash the cheap bed frame and get him out of here_.

Ian Price laughed again, a little louder in his wicked glee. "Two minutes and counting! What'll it be, do you think? A neighbor has phoned in a complaint about the noise and cops show up? Better yet, maybe a phone call sounding like Jason was made to one of your colleagues at the hospital, like that prick Doctor Jordan who has it out for me, or that real pretty Doctor Solis that I'm failing to impress? Or maybe some high-def photos are going to upload to Facebook at exactly eight twenty-five?"

Ruben fumbled with trying to get the sweatpants on his feet. All the while, Ian Price pedaled his legs and almost kicked Ruben in the face.

"You can't afford to ruin Jason," he said. "His credit cards pay for you to party all night."

"He wants to destroy me!" Ian's sudden blast of fury hit Ruben like a physical slap. Startled, he backed away from the man on the bed. "How will he do it? How will you do it! Tick-tock. Tick-tock."

"With drugs," Ruben blurted. "We drugged you into oblivious before, for five full years, until you apparently developed an immunity and so now we're trying to formulate a new serum that will eradicate you forever."

Ian Price settled back to the pillow. "Go to your laptop and type in all cap six-six-six. You've got less than thirty seconds."

Ruben rushed to his Macbook and did as he was told. The screen saver of a tropical beach gave way to the desktop, a cascade of tiles rapidly closing themselves out. Rubin shuddered at the naked photos disappearing before his very eyes, before they uploaded to Facebook, to Instagram, to Flickr, to Pinterest, to eBay, and even to the craft forum Etsy.

Ruben turned back to face the man on the bed, just in time to watch the transformation. For all the years that he had known his friend's secret, he had never actually witnessed him change.

At exactly 8:24, Ian's expression went blank as a corpse. His eyes fixed, his jaw slackened, and even from across the room it was clear he had stopped breathing. Ruben wondered if he were hooked up to an EKG, would he appear to be flatlining. When the clock ticked over to 8:25, Doctor Jason Cole gasped like a man coming up from underwater. The quality of his demeanor changed. His blue eyes took on a mood of kindness and intelligence, followed quickly by confusion.

Jason rattled his chained wrists. He looked down at himself. "Ruben? What's going on?"

"I'm sorry, but he made me tell."

"Tell what?"

"What we're planning." Ruben gestured to the laptop. "He was going to upload those photos to the internet. I couldn't let him ruin your reputation, your career. I'm sorry, Jason."

"It's OK." Jason paused, and Ruben wondered what he was thinking. "First, find my phone. Ian usually leaves me a video message, and with any luck, he'll tell us where the keys to these handcuffs are."

"Right." Ruben dialed his own phone and followed the factory-default ring tone into the front room. Sure enough, Jason's clothes, shoes, and iPhone were in a brown paper grocery bag behind the couch.

On the outside of the bag was written in black felt pen, _See you at 8:25 tonite, dumb ass._

#


	3. Chapter 3

Scene 3

Jason Cole's office at the hospital was always in meticulous order. Framed artwork perfectly aligned to the center of the wall above the file cabinet. The textbooks and reference books on his shelf were arranged by subject and then by size. Pens, notepads, and a letter opener nearly occupied a steel mesh organizer. The desk lamp stood squarely in between his nameplate and the filing in/out box. His phone was next to his laptop. But he had no photos, no cute nick-knacks, no thank you cards from grateful patients, nothing to distinguish his office space from a sample display at a Staples store.

Of all the things that Ian Price had said, one thing Ruben could not get out of his mind. _The oh-so-boring neurosurgeon with the saintly character_. As he looked around Jason's office, he realized it was true. His friend was the most boring person he knew. Except for his brilliant medical knowledge and his nearly superhuman skill as a surgeon, Jason Cole was a most unremarkable person. When he wasn't dealing with patients, most of his waking hours were occupied with worrying about his alternate personality and plotting how to get rid of him.

While drawing several tubes of blood from Jason's arm, Ruben asked, "Do you watch sports?"

"Sure, yeah, just not the night games."

"Obviously."

Jason used his free hand to scroll the laptop screen. He skimmed over a dizzying blur of a patient's lab results.

"Hey, don't rush." Ruben switched out the syringe tube for another to fill. "It's only ten o'clock. Do your job."

"I'm not rushing."

"You can't possibly be reading those."

"Why not?" Jason shot him a quick curious glance. "I'm a fast reader. You know that."

"Yeah, but no one can..." Ruben heard the click of hard-soled shoes in the corridor. Nurses and doctors all wore sensible athletic shoes to be on their feet, and visitors rarely came up to the fourteenth floor offices. Only one person he knew of had shoes like that—the head of the neurosurgery department, Doctor Vanessa Young.

Jason whispered, "We forgot to lock the door. Are you almost done?"

"Got it." Ruben plucked out the syringe.

Jason himself pressed a gauze onto the spot. But he had no time to pull down the sleeve of his white lab coat.

Ruben scrambled to pack the blood-filled test tubes into the plastic supply kit. Scraps of disposable wrappers and stained cotton balls were still scattered on the desk.

Doctor Vanessa Young knocked twice as she stepped inside. "Hello, Jason, I..." In the pause, she observed the trash, the blood-draw kit, and Jason pressing a gauze to his forearm.

"My diabetes," Jason said. "I'm due for my annual A1C test. Thank you, Doctor Marcado, for running these through the lab for me."

"You're welcome, Doctor Cole." Ruben stood up but still felt his knees shaking.

Doctor Young held her ground blocking the doorway. She was a graceful middle-aged woman with just a hint of Southern accent, and like Jason she had a reserved manner bordering on stoic. "Actually, I've been concerned about your diabetes lately. I hope you don't mind, but I've brought in a specialist from Switzerland to discuss some new treatment options. Do you have a moment?"

"Well, I'm actually kind of busy. Can we put it off till later?"

A man in a dark business suit came in from behind Doctor Young. He pressed the door open a little more to make his entrance. Ruben was struck with the odd sensation of having seen the fellow's face before, more of a square-jawed wrestler or boxer type, or perhaps he had the sort of generic European face one would expect of a Swiss endocrinologist.

"If you give me a few minutes of your time," the stranger said. "I think you would like to try one of my treatments."

Ruben furrowed his brow, thinking it odd that the fellow had no foreign accent. If anything, he sounded local to Philadelphia in the way he pronounced his Rs. For all the years that Ruben had studied to neutralize his own Puerto Rican accent, he was sensitive to the nuances in other people's voices.

"No, thank you," said Doctor Cole, turning to the work on his laptop. "But if you've published a paper about it, I'd be glad to read it and get back to you."

The fellow cocked his head, obviously surprised at the brush-off. "Are you sure you wouldn't like a treatment?"

"No, thanks just the same."

Doctor Young shared a concerned glance with the fellow and something of a secret passed between them. Even though they were quick, and self-conscious with him in the room, Ruben knew that expression all too well: the don't-say-it-in-front-of-the-kids sort of look.

The fellow turned to him and, more specifically, the blood-drawing kit. "May I have a tube to experiment on?"

"What?" Ruben gasped.

Jason swiveled in his chair. "That's a highly inappropriate request, don't you think, Doctor... I didn't catch your name."

"Avalon," he said. "Frank Avalon."

_You've got to be kidding. Like the Beach Blanket Bingo guy?_ Ruben stared at him more intently, trying to remember where he had seen that face before.

"Perhaps we could have supper this evening," the so-called Doctor Avalon suggested.

"I'm sorry," Jason said. "I don't socialize in the evenings."

"We could meet around seven o'clock, and I'd be sure to finish our conversation before eight-twenty-five."

Ruben felt a chill down his spine, and he saw the same reaction in Jason stiffening his shoulders.

Doctor Avalon quickly followed up, "I've heard that you never schedule any appointments that go past eight-twenty-five."

"I've got reasons... personal reasons," Jason said stiffly. "If you'll excuse me, doctor, I have a lot of work to get to."

#


	4. Chapter 4

Scene 4

The three of them went into the corridor together as colleagues. After a few steps, Doctor Young held back and lingered near the door of Jason's office. She said, "If you don't mind, I'd like to talk to him privately. I'm almost sure that if I explain it, he'll reconsider hearing you out."

Doctor Avalon checked his wristwatch. Ruben noticed it was an expensive type but not made for glamor, almost military in its intricate functions.

"You have until eight-fifteen," he said.

She nodded, "I understand," and went back into Jason's office.

Ruben strolled off toward the elevator, his mind buzzing faster with trying to remember where he had seen this fellow's face. The images slowly rising out of his memory were dynamic and three-dimensional, not like a single photograph in the byline of a medical journal's article. He was almost sure that he had met this fellow in a different circumstance. But where?

Doctor Avalon joined him in the elevator. Ruben poked the button for the ninth floor; the other fellow chose the lobby.

"So your name is Marcado?" He pointed to the name tag on Ruben's lab coat.

"That's right," he said.

The fellow pulled out his Galaxy phone and one-handedly thumbed over the screen. Being shorter than the man next to him, Ruben was eye level with the phone's display. He saw pages of text and photographs of his own smiling face scroll by.

"Hey..."

"About seven years ago, you applied for a job at the research labs of RC Industries."

Ruben snapped his fingers. "That's where I saw you! Only... this is weird. I don't remember you being a doctor."

"I wasn't." Avalon raised his hand to Ruben's neck. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the fellow held a syringe.

The needle stung.

The drug burned up into his skull.

His vision went dark.

#


	5. Chapter 5

Scene 5

Ruben awoke in a dim cramped compartment. He squinted in an effort to open his eyes, and a headache throbbed at his temples. Groaning, he wondered, _What time is it?_

"It's four-thirty, give or take." Avalon shined a pen light into his eyes. "Jeez, what a light weight. I thought you were in a coma. That wasn't even a full dose, judging by what a little shrimp you are."

"Who... are you." Not that he expected an answer, but it seemed to be the time to ask. Ruben flexed his jaw. His whole mouth tasted like licorice.

"C'mon, you recognized me. That's why I had to remove you from the situation before you blow my cover."

Ruben opened his eyes a little wider to take in his surroundings. He was strapped with duct tape to a swivel chair inside a small compartment. The walls and ceiling appeared to be made of painted metal sheeting and joined with bolts. _I'm inside a UPS van_. Only this was no ordinary package courier. One whole wall had more computerized gadgetry and flat-screen monitors than the bridge of a submarine. The video feeds displayed the interior of Jason Cole's office—now empty—and various views of the hospital corridors, nurses stations, supply rooms, elevators, surgical theaters, and laboratories.

"Hey, that's my lab," Ruben said.

"Yeah, how about that." Avalon stood looming over him, one hand in his trousers front pocket to show the hint of a gunbelt underneath his jacket.

_RC Industries research laboratory_. Ruben thought about the day he had gone to the job interview. It wasn't like any other place he had applied for an internship; the employees dressed in fashionable fitness gear, yoga pants and tank tops, and every one of them was worthy of a magazine cover. He had never seen so many beautiful people in real life. It was the first time in his life that Ruben had truly felt small.

Avalon had been one of the security guards. Ruben remembered him, now, as one of the few not-beautiful people in the whole high-rise building. A lady who seemed too young to have multiple Ph.D.s gave him a tour of the facilities and described some of their on-going projects in very general terms, of course. The laboratory had several divisions within their departmental structure: endocrinology, behavioral psychology, neurology, and the new up-and-coming field of HCI or Human Computer Interaction which was an offshoot from decades of research into artificial intelligence.

_The human brain is the most advanced computer on earth_, she had cheerfully explained. _It is a perfect synergy of biochemical electrical processes. Most people assume it is hard-wired, that our thoughts and memories are recorded in a fixed state. Imagine, what if they are malleable and perhaps even transferable from one brain to another? The same way you can copy the data off a CD-ROM disk and upload it to another machine._

In the end, RC Industries had not called him back for a second interview. Ruben had written them off as rejecting him unfairly for not being tall enough or Anglo enough. Not long after that, he started his internship at a university hospital where he first met Doctor Jason Cole.

Avalon cleared his throat. "OK, here's the thing. We've had you under surveillance long enough to figure that you're his friend. You like the guy. Hell, who wouldn't like the guy? He's perfect, right? Smart, polite, generous, all that. You stick your neck out for him, time and again. You risk your job and your career to keep his secret."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you do. But see, what you don't know is, you're keeping the wrong guy's secret." Avalon tapped on one of the flat-screen monitors.

Viewed from above, Jason had just entered the lab where Ruben worked. He looked around for a few seconds, checked his wristwatch, and then raised his iPhone to his ear.

Ruben's pocket lit up and sang the chorus of Blondie's _Call Me_. "You'd better let me answer that or he'll get worried about me. You don't want him calling the cops, do you?"

Avalon shrugged. "I don't think he'll call the cops. You know why? Because he's only got about three and half hours before he changes."

Ruben gulped.

"The trouble with Doctor Jason Cole is that he's not used to thinking on his feet," Avalon continued. "He's designed for analyzing symptoms and operating into people's brains. That's it, period. That's all he's good for."

"Designed?" Ruben repeated.

"C'mon, you're not stupid. You've met them both, now. Which one seems more real to you? Ian Price or Jason Cole?"

RC Industries at the cutting edge of HCI and neurological research had a whole floor dedicated to studying how humans learned. Pregnant women reclined wearing stereo headphones on their bellies to play Mozart and foreign language tapes to their unborn children. Toddlers played with colored blocks as they wore wired electrode tabs on their skulls.

"Yep, there you go," Avalon said. "You're getting it."

"Jason?"

"There is no such person as Doctor Jason Cole."

Ruben shook his head, even as he thoughts raced to the unavoidable conclusion. "You're saying Ian Price is the original and Jason is the alternate personality?"

"Let's just say that some people wanted a star neurosurgeon to improve the hospital's reputation. Jason Cole is an amalgam of all the best medical minds in the world, living and dead. He inspires the fat rich donors to make those big contributions, and hell, he saves lives so it's all good."

"Oh my god."

"The process was supposed to completely over-write that little punk Ian, but there's a glitch in his imprint that even the top geniuses can't figure out. The last five years, we've managed to suppress his original with nano-technology. We slipped nanobots into those injections you were secretly giving him, the placebo serum that you thought was actually working."

"You should have told me sooner," Ruben said. "Without knowing, I could have hurt him."

"No, he's too important for us to let that happen.

Ruben squirmed in his chair, straining at the duct tape that bound his arms. "Let me go."

"Sure thing, as soon as you signed the employment contract and non-disclosure agreement." Avalon extended his smart phone nearer to Ruben's face.

"The print is too small. I can't read it."

"You don't need to read it," Avalon said. "You just need to understand that by knowing this secret you work for us, now. You are a lifetime employee of RC Industries, a subsidiary of the Rossum Corporation. You will not breathe a hint of this to anyone—ever—and know that we are watching your every move, your every word, your every thought. You will cooperate fully and completely with your supervisor..."

"That's you?"

"No, I'm just Cole's handler. Your supervisor will contact you anonymously, and he or she will decide when or if you need to know anymore."

Ruben nodded with a poker face, but it was not hard for him to conclude. Doctor Vanessa Young was the hospital administrator with enough ambition to manufacture a dozen Jason Coles. She organized the fund raisers. She had hired him, and she indulged all his eccentric requests including not being scheduled to work nights. What doctor could get away with not working at night?

Avalon checked his wristwatch. "OK, here's what's gonna happen. You're going to tell Jason that you've rented a locker at a public storage facility. He'll trust you. He'll go with you. Tell him that you'll chain him up like some goddamned werewolf, and if Ian Price doesn't like it, that's just tough shit. Bring your syringes and tell him that you'll be drawing out spinal fluid, or bone marrow fluid, or whatever bullshit you can think of. Make him believe that you're working on a cure."

"But there is no cure, is there," Ruben said glumly.

"Not till we haul his ass back to the Dollhouse and put him in the reprogramming chair."

"Dollhouse?" Ruben asked. "I thought that was just an urban legend."

#


	6. Chapter 6

Scene 6

The plan worked just as Avalon had explained it. _Jason trusted me_, Ruben thought with a heavy weight sickening his stomach. _Even if he's not real, he trusted me._ By nine o'clock that evening, Ian Price was red-faced furious and strapped to a gurney. The operatives dressed in gray coveralls hauled him out the back of the paneled van. They wheeled him up a loading dock into the rear of what appeared to be a storage warehouse.

"You son-of-a-bitch!" Ian screamed, twisting his head to aim his murderous stare at Ruben. "You stupid, son-of-a-dumb-ass bitch! I'll kill you for this. Or they will. Don't think for a second that you're getting through this night alive."

Ruben followed them into the freight elevator.

"Oh shut up already." Avalon slapped a square of duct tape over Ian's mouth, so all he could was snort his rage. He bucked and thrashed on the gurney, but the nylon straps held tight.

The elevator descended, the glowing numbers on the panel lighting up one at a time. The basement was only the beginning. Level three, level four, and level five sped by.

"I'm sorry," Ruben said.

"Don't talk to him," Avalon advised, as the elevator passed level six.

"I'm just saying that, even if Ian's the world's biggest dick, I'm not feeling much better about myself right now. For months, I've been plotting with Jason to essentially murder someone, and now I'm colluding with you guys to do the same thing."

"How is it murder? We're just making him a better person."

"You're making him a different person," Ruben said. "Whether you shoot him and dump in the ocean, or whether you erase his mind and replace it with another, it's kind of the same."

Avalon turned to him, with big round eyes showing a hint of sympathy. "Don't let the boss hear you talk like that. It doesn't go well for people who talk like that."

The elevator opened to a view of a large, serene atrium. The domed glass ceiling was lit warmly from above, giving the illusion of a sun roof even though Ruben knew they were deeper underground than a nuclear fall-out shelter. Potted plants and colorful flowers softened the sleek lines of modern architecture. It reminded Ruben of a high-scale shopping mall but without the stores. Young pretty people in comfortable yoga fashion strolled about aimlessly or reclined on sofas. Everyone seemed at ease and blissful to the point of appearing stoned.

_Dollhouse_. Ruben recalled the rumors and crazy legends he had heard from his fellow doctors about programmable people. Better than prostitutes; better than escorts; they are brainwashed to become whatever you want them to be. He had laughed about it, saying there could be no such thing. But here they were—loitering in wait for their next assignment. They would be someone's perfect lover, perfect adventure partner, or a perfect star neurosurgeon.

As he walked behind the gurney that the operatives wheeled along the corridor, Ruben wondered, Why him? Why choose Ian Price and not some struggling medical student who might jump at the chance to have his knowledge programmed into him?

The gurney passed through an open doorway to a glass-walled observation booth. Inside were more computer screens, keyboards, and a bookshelf-sized array of stacked hard drives.

"Hi, bring him this way, hello." A young nerd with messy blond hair and a sloppy T-shirt emerged from the doorway to another room.

Ruben tried to follow the gurney, but Avalon blocked his way. "C'mon, I just want to see what they're going to do to him."

The blond nerd looked back and forth, smiling awkwardly in his confusion. "You're not his handler. Who are you?"

"I guess I'm his friend."

He laughed with a sort of childlike air. "Dolls don't have friends."

Avalon explained, "He's the chemist."

"I'm a pharmacologist and endocrinologist, actually. I've been studying Jason's physiology for over five years now. Did you know Ian and Jason have a completely distinct blood chemistry? Whenever they change back and forth, his whole body transforms on a molecular level."

"Really? That's kind of interesting I guess." He brushed off his long blond bangs, but the hair just fell back to where it was before. "Y'know, maybe it wouldn't hurt for you to watch."

"Well thanks, uh..."

"Topher," said the nerd. "My name's Topher. I'm from the L.A. house, but they flew me all the way out here to fix what's wrong with this guy."

Ruben stepped past Avalon, who now moved aside to let him through. It was not much of a victory, but it was something to score a point.

By now, the operatives had wrestled Ian Price into an elaborate dental chair. They strapped his wrists, his waist, and his legs. Tape still covered his mouth, but he had finally ceased trying to growl through it. His pale blue eyes opened wider, adding a layer of animal panic to the rage that already seethed in him.

Topher at the head of the chair fixed an apparatus resembling a sawed-off salon hair dryer. A crescent ring encircled Ian's head, and a glowing bar shined blue on his cheeks.

Ruben bent over to study the gadgetry up close. He was near enough to smell the droplets of sweat on Ian Price's forehead. Then he looked up to the wall mounted screens that displayed neon-colored diagrams of a human brain. "It's like an MRI," he said.

"Seriously? An MRI?" Topher tapped at the keys of a control board. "You're looking at the most sophisticated brain mapping software in the world. There's specific lines of code targeting each one of between 85 to 100 billion neurons, each cell as complex as that phone in your hand, transmitting bio-electrical signals to each other in constantly shifting configurations, affected by variances in daily diet, hormones..."

"Blood glucose levels?" Ruben interupted.

"Sure." Topher walked a full circle around the chair, while tapping at his wireless keyboard, and never once looked Ian Price in the eye. "See, here's the baseline personality, and here's the imprint."

Ruben observed the mosaic on the oval change colors from one to the other. "So what went wrong? Why did he keep flipping back and forth at exactly the same time every night?"

Topher chuckled lightly. "Because I didn't do his imprinting the first time. These Philadelphia folks, they mean well, but they didn't fully extract the baseline. Let's just be glad they didn't make another Alpha."

_Who or what is an Alpha? _Ruben did not dare to ask.

"Rest assured, my friend, I have debugged the Jason Cole imprint with a fine-toothed comb. Once I do a clean extraction, a memory wipe, and re-imprint the doll, he won't even remember the name Ian Price."

"Does it hurt?" Ruben stared into the blue eyes that were rapidly draining of rage.

"Maybe," Topher said. "But they don't remember that either. OK, stand clear, I'm initiating the extraction."

The crescent gadgetry turned on to a bright florescent glow. Ian convulsed in his bonds like a cardiac arrest being resuscitated. Only the seizure did not pass as quickly as a defibrillator blast, but held him arched and rigid for a full minute and forty-five seconds. Ruben held his breath watching and shuddered to hear the buzz of electronics go on so long.

At last, it released. The glow went dark. Ian slumped exhausted into himself. Breathing hard, he snorted with some effort against the duct tape that still bound his mouth.

"OK, great." Topher looked to the computer screens on the wall. "Extraction a success, the imprint is at one hundred percent integrity. Next step is the memory wipe."

"He can't breathe," Ruben said, and before Avalon or the other attendants could stop him, he peeled off the duct tape.

Ian opened his mouth wide and gasped for air. "What's happening? Who are these people? What are they doing to me?"

Avalon spoke for the first time. "You signed a ten-year contract with option to renew. You chose to live as a successful, well-respected brain surgeon instead of the illiterate loser you really are."

"No I didn't." Ian's blue eyes rolled wildly from side to side as he tried to catch the attention of the software nerd behind him. "I didn't sign anything. What the hell are you talking about? I don't want to be Jason. I hate Jason! Don't... Whatever you're going to do to my brain, don't!"

Ruben looked to the man strapped in the chair with a sudden wave of pity and remorse. What had made Ian Price such a loathsome person, anyway? He was rude and short-tempered, sometimes violent and enjoyed diving into bar fights. He drank too much, smoked cheap cigarettes, and snorted cocaine when he could get his hands on it. He respected no one—and had earned no one's respect—but in the greater scheme of evil deeds, what had he really done that was so terrible? So he was a creepy stalker obsessed with Jason's ex-fiancee Olivia, but as far as Ruben knew, Ian had never actually hurt her. Illiterate, maybe. Stupid, definitely. But did he deserve to have his entire life erased?

"Maybe we should hold off putting Jason back," Ruben said.

"What?" Topher, with his finger poised above the ENTER key, looked back over his shoulder.

Avalon looming tall behind him said, "Don't even think about it."

Ruben checked his wristwatch. "It's not quite nine-thirty. Can I make one phone call?"

"Seriously?" Topher chuckled briefly, then his smile faded. "You're serious. You want to call somebody right now?"

"The hospital administrator Doctor Vanessa Young." Ruben looked up at Avalon's pasty frown. "She's the one who ordered up Jason Cole in the first place, am I right? Let her talk to him... No, let Ian talk to her. Let him speak in his own defense, and if she still wants her star neurosurgeon back, then so be it."

Avalon said, "He's a lying prick, and I'm not going to waste her time."

Stepping nearer to Ruben's shoulder, Topher said, "Clearly no one's explained this to you. Clients don't talk to the dolls. Clients never want to talk to the dolls. They want their fantasy. That's what they pay for."

"But-"

"Quit whining," said Ian from the chair. "You made your choice. You turned me in, and now at least have the balls to follow through. I'm screwed, OK? The longer you make a fuss, the longer it's gonna drag out."

"But-"

"Hey you, Mister Bad Haircut." Ian closed his eyes. "Just do it."

Ruben took a step back. He didn't want to watch, but he could not look away. Topher tapped the key, the crescent headpiece glowed brightly, and Ian Price was forever drained into a cube of integrated circuits. _I'm being an idiot,_ Ruben told himself as tears welled up in his eyes. _I didn't even like the asshole. Nobody did_.

#


	7. Chapter 7

Scene 7

The next morning, Ruben sat inside the public storage locker waiting for Jason Cole to wake up. The operatives of the Dollhouse had set the scene with enough paraphernalia to make it look convincing. Used syringes, wrappers, gauze, plastic tubing, and a fully functional I.V. rack on wheels mounted with state-of-the-art electronic pumps. The I.V. bags labeled as saline solution were filled and drained of a corn starch paste with green food coloring. But Jason did not need to know that. Ruben had rehearsed his script, as provided by Avalon, and the small web-cam placed in the upper corner of the storage locker would ensure that he stuck to the story. The only variable unknown was, when would Jason wake up.

Ruben checked his wristwatch. It was about ten minutes before eight o'clock in the morning. He broke one of his primary rules from the days of medical school, and he did the math. _I've been awake for twenty-three hours without a break._

The sleeping man snorted, licked his lips, and opened his eyes. In that brief moment, Ruben had the wild hope that it would not be Jason Cole after all.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"Seven fifty-two," Ruben answered.

"AM?"

"Yeah, it's the morning. How do you feel?"

"I have a headache, but otherwise..." He slowly curled his gut to sit upright. Looking around, his eyes took a quick survey of the scattered trash, the I.V. rack, and the bandage on his forearm. "You're sure of the time?"

"Yeah."

"And it's not daylight savings... Oh my god, Ruben, you did it. You got rid of Ian."

"Yeah."

Jason rose to his feet and came eye-to-eye with the green corn starch paste in the I.V. bag. "How did you do it?"

"Well, I can print out the technical details for you later, but basically I isolated Ian's distinct blood chemistry and developed an immunization to eradicate it. You've got, um, antibodies against him. He won't be back."

Jason smiled broadly and gave Ruben a clap on the back. "You have just saved my life, man. Anything I can ever do for you... Anything! Just name it."

"Yeah, don't mention it." Ruben bent over to start picking up the syringe wrappers into a plastic garbage bag.

Then, his cell phone buzzed playing the merry flute riff from Men At Work's _Land Down Under_. It meant he was getting a text message from his brother Luis who taught English at the local high school. Ruben pulled out his phone and saw that his brother had texted him a link to a YouTube video. Assuming it was probably something silly like a cat pouncing on a roasted marshmallow, he chose to ignore it.

Then his Twitter went crazy popping up tweets from all his friends who repaired cars, who flipped pancakes at the local IHOP, or who rode the train to office jobs in the city. All of them recommended the same YouTube video.

"Huh, that's weird. I think something's happening." Ruben tapped the screen and waited for the video to launch.

Speaking into the camera, in close-up view, was the same face that curiously leaned over to observe the phone in Ruben's palm. "Some of you may know me as Doctor Jason Cole the ridiculously brilliant and talented brain surgeon." The familiar clear voice had a twinge of restrained anger, and his blue eyes had a harsh expression. Ruben's gut went cold, knowing it was Ian Price.

"Oh god," Jason said. "What the hell is this?"

The video continued, "If you're watching this in internet land, it means I'm either dead or something worse. Actually I'd prefer dead, because then I'd get a lovely funeral and be remembered by a lot of weeping women. Yes, Doctor Solis, you missed your chance to get some of this man candy, but that's your loss. But... the more likely scenario is that I've been sort of murdered in the way that police and courts have yet to define."

"Stop it," Jason said, to the phone's screen, to Ruben, and to the universe itself. "Make it stop."

"You see the truth is, I'm not really Doctor Jason Cole. There is no Doctor Jason Cole. I was born Ian Price in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. A scan of my official birth certificate is uploaded to my blog, which for you geeks out there is full of typos but what the hell. It's the internet. I can't read beyond a seventh grade level because that's when I figured out that school is for losers. I've made ten times the cash in a week by dealing cocaine and heroin than any brain surgeon ever made in a year."

Ruben looked up to the surveillance camera in the corner of the storage locker. "Shit, we've got to get out of here. Trust me. I'll explain later."

The video kept playing. "I'm not sure how it happened. Maybe too much dropping acid? Maybe a bad reaction to the penicillin shot I took after that three-way I did in Atlantic City? But one day, I developed this split personality named Jason Cole. Every morning at exactly eight twenty-five, he would emerge from my subconscious, and every night at exactly eight twenty-five, he would go away and I could be myself. He left me threatening messages. He imprisoned me with drugs for five painful years. He robbed me of a relationship with the only woman I ever loved, and because of Jason, I can never be a father to my son."

"Son?" Jason repeated. "What son?"

"Never mind. Hurry!" Ruben rolled up the storage locker's door. Their escape was blocked by a black panel van, and the large fellow in a black suit and sunglasses.

"So if you're watching this video, that I timed to upload this morning unless I put in the password to stop it, then it means I'm effectively dead. Jason Cole has murdered me, somehow. Whether it was another formula of psycho drugs or hypnosis or electro-shock therapy... do they even do that anymore?"

Ruben held up his hands to Avalon in the dark suit and mirror sunglasses. "Don't shoot!"

Avalon said, "No one's going to shoot anybody. We're hacking into his blog and his YouTube account. Jason here is going to film another video, saying how it was all a funny joke."

Jason nodded. "Absolutely! This is Ian's last ditch attempt to ruin my life, and he's not going to get away with it. Ruben, here, aim your phone at me. I'll do it right now. By the way, who are you?"

"Private security for the hospital's board of directors, Doctor Cole. We got worried when you two went missing, but now we're just so glad you're all right."

Ruben laughed nervously looking down at his phone. He wiped his fingertips across the screen to set it up for recording a video. "Yes, yes, we're all right."

He didn't see Avalon bringing a syringe to his neck until it was too late.

#


	8. Chapter 8

Scene 8-Epilogue

Ruben woke up to find himself strapped to the chair in the Dollhouse. He wriggled, but the nylon belts around his wrists and ankles held tight. Turning his head left and right, he could just make out the edges of the crescent-shaped gadget.

"Oh my god, shit, no, please. Topher?"

"Topher is on a plane back to Los Angeles," said an unfamiliar male voice with a sharp Philadelphia accent. "It's just you and me, now, Doctor Marcado. Well, not for long. We've got a nice imprint all picked out for you."

"I won't tell anyone. I signed the contract, didn't I? Please let me go. Don't do this."

"Sorry, but I'm just following orders." In the pause were clickety-clacks of computer keys and a heartless chuckle. "Have you ever dreamed of being a star on Broadway?"

Greenish-blue light flared bright, and then everything in Ruben's mind faded to white.

The End


End file.
